A LIVING PYRE

Picture courtesy: Peter Caton

Copyright: Greenpeace International

Story by Jayashree Nandi

August 08, Jharia, Crumbling under fire and subsidence, Jharia is a place of smouldering land and noxious fumes that make breathing difficult. Yet thousands of inhabitants cling to this collapsing town, eking out a living.

Many of them are illegal coal collectors, who spend their days frantically picking up pieces of coal from the mine dump to sell at the local market for 50 Rupees (US$1.20) a basket.
To make matters worse, the threat of displacement hovers over their heads on a daily basis as the fires continue to spread.
Before coal was unearthed in this area, Jharia was a belt of dense forests inhabited by tribes. Agriculture and cattle rearing were the basic forms of livelihood. Lore has it that King Raja Shiv Prasad Singh, who reigned over Jharia and surrounding areas, first leased 200 acres of land to a Gujarati merchant for just Rs 200 (US$5) to start mining. The mine grew, and soon the fires started – smouldering coal seams and waste heaps set alight by neglect and poor mining techniques. Since the first fire was seen in Jharia in 1916 (in a colliery called Bohra), unscientific mining has been the prime reason behind the spread of fire and subsidence. One particularly bad period was just after 1971, when the mines were nationalised and a public sector company called Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) took over Jharia. These new owners started to dig huge opencast mines to get to seams of coal near the surface – a cheaper way of mining. Once used, these enormous coal pits were then abandoned, leaving the coal seams exposed to the atmosphere. This caused the seams to ignite. Once alight, these fires are virtually impossible to put out. According to BCCL, there are 67 active fire zones in Jharia today. Thousands of poor, mostly unskilled, migrants from neighbouring states have settled in Jharia over the years. Most of them collect coal illegally to pay for their two meals a day. This has put huge pressure on the existing infrastructure.

Gayatri Devi, a 50-year-old illegal coal collector, lives in a one-room house in one of the active fire zones called Bokapahadi. The floor of her house has a huge crack running through it, and fumes from underneath fill the house. She told us: “I have lived here for 40 years. Last year, the floor cracked and since then my house is on fire. When we walk barefoot, our feet burn. At night, my children feel suffocated due to the pungent fumes. Eight of us sleep in this room. We have no where to go, neither do we have the money to make another house. Probably we will die here.”

Ill health adds to the sense of despair in the town. Pollution invades everything – air, water and land. Smoke from the fires contains poisonous gases including carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide. These fumes, along with fine coal dust from the fires, cause several lung and skin diseases. The problem is made worse by the fact that most mine workers, including shovel drivers, do not wear masks, boots or overalls. It’s no surprise that the most common diseases in this area are pneumoconiosis, tuberculosis, asthma and other chronic lung disorders. Dr Rajiv Agarwal, a local doctor in Jharia, told us that, “Most patients who are mine workers suffer from pneumoconiosis. Once it is detected, there is not much one can do. A film of coal soot covers the lungs. Anaemia and malnutrition are also very common, a fall out of abject poverty and extreme labour in mining areas.” Miners bear the brunt of it, but everyone is affected. Shanti lives in Lodhna, also a fire zone. She told us, “I have continuing headaches due to the noxious gases around. It lasts for days. My children are also down with headache most of the time. At times, there is no one to go to work because my husband has TB. He coughs blood and is very sick. I hope we get over these troubled times soon.”

Despite the obvious evidence to the contrary, when asked about safety provisions, Mr Subrata Chowdhury, ex-chairman and managing director of BCCL, completely denied the fact that workers suffer from respiratory disorders. In spite of all these issues, what people worry about most is displacement. Technical director of BCCL, T.K.Lahiry, recently announced:“Loss of good quality coking coal is a national loss. It is in a way degradation of environment. BCCL is losing its profitability and people are living in extremely unsafe conditions. The only solution is to rehabilitate people inhabiting such hazardous areas.” This rehabilitation comes in the form of the Jharia Action Plan – a Rs 60 billion (US$1.5 billion) initiative to re-house inhabitants and get the coal fires under control. In response to the plan, India’s Ministry of Coal has also released Rs 600 million (US$15 million) for a pilot project to build housing for the residents of Bokapahari, one of the worst affected areas. These plans are good in principle but they don’t address the complexity of the problem. In fact, in Bokapahari there is widespread and strong resistance to the forthcoming displacement. According to the residents, huge families of eight to ten people are being given one-room structures. Belagaria (where the new housing is being built) is far away from the city, and has hardly any employment opportunities. Given the gloomy choice of living in fire zones or losing their livelihood, most people have no choice but to try to stay put. Ashok Agarwal, president of Jharia Bachao Sangharsh samiti – a local resistance body currently fighting BCCL’s plans in the Supreme Court – sums up the no-win situation as follows: “The company started opencast and slaughter mining because it is cheaper and can be easily done. Once the fire spread, almost nothing was done to extinguish it. Sand stowing is avoided because it is expensive. Fire zones are left open. Now they want to remove all the people and extract more coal. However, their compensation is useless compared to the damage done. What will people do where there are no jobs?” As Jharia burns, people continue to put up with the horrendous conditions, the disease, pollution and threat of displacement. Why? Because they have no other choice.